How Can We Name a Love Meaning, History, and Theology
"How can we name a Love"
- Written
- 1973
- Category
- Hymn
- Tune
- Standard Tune
- Status
- Published
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Story
How Can We Name a Love is a 1973 hymn by Brian Wren that explores how Christians name God's love through ordinary human experience while locating its fullest meaning in Christ. A common setting is the traditional English tune TERRA BEATA, adapted for hymn use by Franklin L. Sheppard in 1915.
Overview
How Can We Name a Love is a modern hymn by Brian Wren that asks how Christians can speak faithfully about a God whose love exceeds any single human description. Rather than beginning with an abstract definition, the hymn directs attention to the ordinary places where love is encountered: human relationships, shared work, care, creativity, and the texture of daily life.
The text is therefore both theological and practical. It treats human language about God as necessary but limited, using a range of relational images while refusing to make any one metaphor exhaustive. Its theological center is explicitly Christian: the many partial signs of love found in human experience are gathered and judged in relation to Christ, in whom divine love is most fully disclosed.
For worship, the hymn works especially well in services concerned with the nature and names of God, divine love, Christian vocation, family and community life, or the incarnation. Its reflective character invites congregations to examine not only the words they use for God but also whether their patterns of care, work, and relationships make divine love more visible.
Historical Background
Brian Wren wrote How Can We Name a Love in 1973. Hymnary identifies the text with that date and gives its meter as 6.6.8.6 D, while published copyright notices consistently place the words under Hope Publishing Company copyright from 1975. The 1989 date found in some hymn records belongs to The United Methodist Hymnal, where the hymn appears as number 111; it is not the date of composition.
The text belongs to an important period in Wren's development as a hymn poet. After leaving parish ministry in 1970, he worked in Christian education and international justice concerns while continuing to write hymns that connected biblical faith with contemporary language and daily life. The hymn was later included among Wren's collected work, and a 1992 hymnal identifies it with the authorial note or subtitle The Beyond in the midst of life. That phrase aptly describes the hymn's method: it looks for signs of divine transcendence within ordinary human experience without equating God with those experiences.
The copyright history also shows textual development. Later authorized printings identify the words as copyright 1975 and revised in 1995 by Hope Publishing Company. Because modern hymnals may therefore represent different authorized textual states, the wording printed in a licensed hymnal should be treated as the controlling version for worship use.
The musical history is separate from Wren's text. The United Methodist Hymnal pairs the hymn with TERRA BEATA and credits Franklin L. Sheppard as adapter, not composer. TERRA BEATA is a traditional English folk melody related to the tune RUSPER, a variant of which appeared in The English Hymnal in 1906. Sheppard adapted the melody for congregational use and published it in Alleluia, a Presbyterian church-school hymnal, in 1915. The tune was originally associated in that setting with Maltbie D. Babcock's This Is My Father's World, so its pairing with Wren's hymn is a later editorial choice rather than an original text-and-tune combination.
How Can We Name a Love has also appeared with other tunes. A New Hymnal for Colleges and Schools uses MERCER STREET by Malcolm Williamson, while Community of Christ Sings uses ICH HALTE TREULICH STILL. These alternate pairings confirm that Wren's 6.6.8.6 D text has circulated independently of any single melody.
The hymn's reception reflects themes central to late twentieth-century hymnody: renewed attention to the language used for God, the presence of God in ordinary life, the relationship between theology and human experience, and the conviction that Christian claims about love are finally tested and focused in Christ. Its documented appearance in Methodist, Community of Christ, and other hymnals shows ecumenical circulation, while the continued copyright administration by Hope Publishing confirms that the represented text is not public domain.
Biblical Foundations
First John 4:15-19 provides the strongest biblical framework for the hymn because it joins confession of Jesus with the declaration that God is love. The passage also describes believers as remaining in God through love, which supports the hymn's conviction that divine love can be recognized through lived relationships while still having its source in God.
Romans 5:1-5 adds a specifically Christian account of how God's love is known: it is poured into believers' hearts through the Holy Spirit and is grounded in the grace received through Jesus Christ. This keeps the hymn's language of love from becoming merely sentimental or generic.
Acts 17:27-28 speaks of God as near to every person and as the One in whom human beings live, move, and exist. That biblical claim helps illuminate the hymn's attention to divine presence in the ordinary world without collapsing the distinction between God and creation.
Psalm 139:7-10 similarly emphasizes that God's presence cannot be escaped, whether in familiar or remote places. It gives biblical depth to the hymn's insistence that encounters with divine care are not confined to explicitly religious settings.
Colossians 1:15-17 provides the Christological focus: Christ is the image of the invisible God, and all things hold together in him. This supports the hymn's final theological movement from many partial human images toward Christ as the decisive Christian disclosure of divine love.
Verse Explanation
The hymn begins by asking how finite human beings can speak about divine love and by directing attention to God's nearness within ordinary life. The opening movement establishes both the necessity and the limitation of religious language.
The next movement considers the language of intimate human care. It uses family-related imagery to suggest qualities such as dependable nurture and strength, while treating these images as analogies rather than complete definitions of God.
A further movement turns toward cooperation, work, creativity, and shared responsibility. Love is presented not only as an emotion but as something that becomes recognizable through people acting together for a common good.
The final movement gathers these many human analogies into an explicitly Christian confession. The various names can point toward God, but their meaning is finally clarified by Christ, so the hymn ends with Christology rather than with an unlimited catalogue of metaphors.
Theological Reflection
The hymn is fundamentally about theological language. It recognizes that Christians must name God in order to pray, preach, and sing, yet every human image is partial. Its use of several relational metaphors therefore resists the idea that one title, image, or analogy can exhaust the reality of God.
At the same time, the hymn is not content with an undefined spirituality. Its theology is incarnational and Christological: human experiences of care, partnership, creativity, and presence may point toward God, but the Christian norm for interpreting divine love is Jesus Christ. That movement protects the hymn from making ordinary experience self-authenticating.
The text also has a strong theology of vocation. Shared work and mutual care are not merely secular activities alongside worship; they can become places in which Christians discern and enact love. This gives everyday labor, family relationships, community life, and cooperation theological significance without claiming that every human relationship automatically reveals God faithfully.
Finally, the hymn challenges narrow God-language. By drawing on more than one human relationship, it reminds worshipers that Scripture itself uses a wide range of images for God's care, authority, faithfulness, and nearness. The goal is not novelty for its own sake but more faithful speech: language that remains biblical, Christ-centered, pastorally responsible, and aware of its own limits.
Church Impact
How Can We Name a Love has had a smaller hymnal footprint than some of Brian Wren's best-known texts, but its documented circulation spans several traditions. Hymnary records appearances in The United Methodist Hymnal, Community of Christ Sings, Hymns of Truth and Light, A New Hymnal for Colleges and Schools, and a United Methodist music supplement.
Its classifications vary in ways that reveal how editors have understood the hymn. The United Methodist Hymnal places it under God's nature, adoration, and the love of Christ, while Community of Christ Sings associates it with the mystery and names of God, divine presence, incarnation, family relationships, and feminine imagery.
That range makes the hymn useful where congregations are exploring how Christians speak about God, how divine love is recognized in human life, and how Christ shapes Christian understanding of love. It can also support teaching about theological language because the text deliberately combines multiple images rather than presenting one metaphor as exhaustive.
The hymn's later revision history is also significant for church use. Authorized sources identify the text as copyright 1975, revised 1995, so congregations should not assume that all printed versions are identical or freely reproducible. Its continued inclusion in modern hymnals demonstrates ongoing liturgical usefulness, but hymnal appearance alone should not be treated as proof of universal or frequent congregational use.
Musical Notes
A common setting for How Can We Name a Love is TERRA BEATA, the 6.6.8.6 D tune familiar from This Is My Father's World. The melody is traditional rather than an original composition by Franklin L. Sheppard. Hymnary identifies Sheppard as the arranger who adapted the tune in 1915 and published it in Alleluia, a Presbyterian church-school hymnal that he edited.
TERRA BEATA belongs to an English folk-melody family related to RUSPER, a variant printed in The English Hymnal in 1906. The tune is public domain, whereas Wren's text remains copyrighted. This distinction is important for licensing and attribution: Sheppard should be credited as adapter or arranger, not as composer of the traditional melody.
The pairing with Wren's text is later than both works. Other hymnals use different tunes, including MERCER STREET by Malcolm Williamson and ICH HALTE TREULICH STILL. Because Wren's text is metrically regular, it can support more than one suitable 6.6.8.6 D setting, and the existence of multiple published pairings shows that no single tune is intrinsic to the text.
Application
- Examine whether the names and images you use for God are faithful to Scripture while recognizing that no single metaphor can express everything Christians confess about God.
- Look for signs of grace in ordinary relationships, shared work, creativity, and acts of care without confusing those human experiences with God himself.
- Let Christ remain the decisive measure of what Christians mean by divine love, especially when cultural ideas of love conflict with the Gospel.
- Use the hymn to reflect on vocation: how can daily work, family life, friendship, and community service become places where love is practiced visibly?
- When the hymn is used in worship, acknowledge that the text remains copyrighted and sing from an authorized, licensed source.
Discussion Questions
- Why does Christian theology need many names and images for God rather than relying on only one?
- How can ordinary experiences of care, work, and relationship point toward God without becoming substitutes for God?
- What difference does it make that the hymn ultimately interprets divine love through Christ?
- Which biblical images of God expand or correct the images that are most familiar in your own worship tradition?
- How might the language a congregation sings about God shape the way its members treat other people?
Teaching Tips
- Clarify before singing that Brian Wren wrote the text in 1973; 1989 is the publication date of The United Methodist Hymnal, not the composition date.
- Use 1 John 4:15-19 and Colossians 1:15-17 to show how the hymn combines the confession that God is love with a specifically Christ-centered understanding of that love.
- Invite a class to list biblical metaphors for God, then discuss both the value and the limits of every metaphor.
- When using TERRA BEATA, explain that it is a traditional English melody adapted by Franklin L. Sheppard in 1915, not a tune he composed from scratch.
- For copyright awareness, distinguish the public-domain tune from Wren's copyrighted text and use an authorized hymnal or appropriate license.
Sources
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Hymnary.org — How Can We Name a Love text authority
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Hymnary.org — The United Methodist Hymnal 111
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Hymnary.org — TERRA BEATA tune authority
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Hymnary.org — A New Hymnal for Colleges and Schools 474
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Hymnary.org — Community of Christ Sings 2
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Columbia Theological Seminary — Faculty directory entry for Brian A. Wren, Professor Emeritus
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The Methodist Church — I Come with Joy: biographical notes on Brian Wren
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Open British National Bibliography — Faith Looking Forward: the hymns and songs of Brian Wren
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Bible Gateway — 1 John 4 World English Bible
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Bible Gateway — Romans 5:1-5 World English Bible
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Bible Gateway — Acts 17:27-28 World English Bible
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Bible Gateway — Psalm 139:7-10 World English Bible
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Bible Gateway — Colossians 1:15-20 World English Bible
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